


C'mon Baby, Calm Me Down

by orphan_account



Series: before they let us go hs!au [2]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Gen, Highschool AU, Ray-centric, i guess its a series now, same universe as that other hsau fic i did, warnings for anxiety disorders and casual drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 00:22:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5312651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t his fault, really. He’d just needed something to make the worry stop. The constant fucking worrying that never left him alone, even when he was asleep, even in his fucking dreams. Ray’s problem was that he felt too much, cared too much. He felt like the entire world was on his shoulders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ray Ignores The Rules Of Stranger Danger

**Author's Note:**

> So uh, yeah, here's more of this au that nobody asked for but that I will continue to write because I've gotten really attached to it.

_Make it stop make it stop make it stop. Make the whole fucking world stop. Just for a second please just stop or slow down or fucking anything. Stop turning stop spinning stop making me feel like garbage every single day of my fucking life. Just stop stop stop._

_Okay Ray, calm down._

_Roll a joint, take a drag, calm down. It’s okay, it’s fine. You’re fine. You’re okay._

_You have to meet Vinny later today, remember? That was your last blunt, you have to see Vinny. Get up, and go see Vinny. Remember your shoes. You need shoes if you’re going out. Left shoe, right shoe. Good._

\-----------

Ray had a problem. Just a little one, the tiniest itsy bitsiest…yeah, he had a real issue. Too many dates with a girl named Mary Jane were starting to fry his brain.  
It wasn’t his fault, really. He’d just needed something to make the worry stop. The constant fucking worrying that never left him alone, even when he was asleep, even in his fucking dreams. Ray’s problem was that he felt too much, cared too much. He felt like the entire world was on his shoulders, like every worried person was part of him.

He saw a woman crying in the street once and had gone home and sobbed for hours. He didn’t even know her name.

But the joints were good, and they made him feel good. Made him melt away until he was just Ray, not anyone else. Not Atlas, keeping the sky afloat. Just a dumb kid that played way too much xbox.

That was why he was outside today, picking up a new shipment from his dealer. Only, his usual guy wasn’t there at the corner where they’d agreed to meet. Instead there was another tall guy, red hair, beard scruff covering his face.

“What the fuck, where’s Vinny?” Ray hisses, grabbing the kid’s arm, before it’s ripped out of his hand.

“Vinny’s not coming. He moved down to Texas with his folks, he’s done. He’s done with this bullshit.” The kid almost looks disappointed, but not at Ray.

“Where the fuck am I supposed to get my stuff then?”

“I don’t know, kid. You shouldn’t be smoking that shit anyway, it’s bad for your lungs.”

“No, you don’t understand, I need it. I…I just need it, okay? I need it. Can you get some from him? Have him send some up?” Ray rambles on, hands curled around the edges of his beanie, pulling it further down onto his head, and avoiding eye contact with the older boy in front of him.

“Just ‘cause I’m his cousin doesn’t mean I have a line into his business. Hell, he had to pull in a couple favors I owe him to even get me to come out here to tell you. Hey…are you okay? You don’t look too good.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. I got it. I just don’t have any way else to get my stuff, y’know? Fuck, I’m gonna be a wreck,” Ray hisses to the air beside the kid’s head.

“Off the grid anxiety meds?”

“Yeah, you got it.” Ray turns to walk back home, to figure something out, when suddenly there’s a hand around his arm, not gripping hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to stop him.

“Kid, wait. Listen, you sound like you need some actual help, you should really see someone about that.”

“I should, but that doesn’t mean I will. Shit’s expensive, bro. Believe me, I’ve looked into it.”

The kid looked conflicted for a second, a flicker of some sort of recognition on his face. He seemed to mull something over for a second, before taking a pen and a crumpled receipt out of his pocket and scribbling down something.

“Here,” he said, holding it out at arm’s length. Ray took it, and looked at it. It said ‘when you need to vent’ in hurried scrawl, and had a number underneath it. When Ray looked back up to ask the guy what the fuck that meant, he was gone. Disappeared around the alley corner, most likely.

Well, fuck. Now Ray was stuck with a phone number he didn’t know the owner of, and no way to get his ‘medication’. This sucked, this whole day sucked. Michael was probably off somewhere with Ryan, and Gavin was studying for his photography midterm, or something else equally goody-two shoes, so he couldn’t even go hang out with them.

As he walked home, on a whim, he deleted Vinny’s number, replacing it with the one he’d gotten from Strangely-Adorable-Alley-Man. He texted the number, just once.

“No more meds.”

He didn’t get a reply, which was probably for the best. Though, it was really strange. Sending that text made him feel just a little better. An infinitesimal amount, sure, but an amount.

Maybe that was what the cryptic message the kid had written meant. He’d usually try to text Michael or Gav, but it felt like more and more they were starting to become distant. Sure, team lads made it a point to hang out every weekend, and every time he brought up something he was concerned about, his friends would listen intently, offering solutions and advice. But they didn’t really care about his problems. In fact, they were probably sick of him, and were just too nice to tell him.

That was the biggest thing on his mind most of the time. The fact that nobody wanted him around. They were all just hanging out with him as a charity. Who would want to be friends with a loser like him, right? Nobody, that was who.

Did it hurt? Yeah, it hurt. The knowledge that all your friends were the equivalent of babysitters was a heavy cross to bear.

But sometimes, when things were kinda quiet, or on birthdays, he really felt like he was part of their crew, like they were really close. It was almost enough to trick him the rest of the year.

Frowning at that sudden thought, he sent another text to the mystery number.

“My friends must all hate me.”

After that, he texted Michael about their English homework, and got the usual reply of ‘fuck if I know, dude, I don’t even do anything in that class. Sorry’. He sighed to himself, breath crystalizing in the winter air. He pulled out his phone again and sent another text.

“No clue what the homework was.”

\----------------

It became a real habit, texting into the void whenever he felt anxious or upset. He was sure that whoever was on the other side was sick of his bullshit, but he just couldn’t stop himself. It was like having a real outlet to just freely vent. Maybe not to someone that cared, but to someone that would listen.

That was really all he wanted; someone to listen.


	2. 4am Is The Worst Time To Be Awake

Ray was woken up by an all beep rendition of ‘La Cucaracha’ at 4 in the goddamn morning. On a Saturday, the most holy of sleeping in days. Fucking Michael and his stupid jokes. He pulled the phone off the night stand, seeing a blinking blue light that strobed in the thick dark of his room. Unread. And from the joke master himself apparently.

“hey, you awake?”

“I am now, asshole, what’s up?”

“I’m drunk at Mercy and Ryan’s asleep and I really just want to talk to somebody.”

“talk away pal, I got all the time in the world.”

“I feel like. I feel like we aren’t as good of friends as we used to be”

“You mean team lads?”

“No, I mean me and you, Ray. Is it ryan? Do you not like him or something? Cause like, Ray, buddy ol pal, I love ryan. I love him so much it hurts, but if you got a problem with him then I’ll end it, you know I will, ray.”

Ray felt his heart tense up at the thought of Michael, tired and drunk in that cold hospital, wondering if the person he loved wasn’t good enough for his friends.

He switched over his window, sending a quick vent text.

“Friend thinks I don’t like his boyfriend.”

He switched back to his conversation with Michael, and typed back:

“No, Ryan’s great. He’s a great guy, Michael.”

“Then why do you keep avoiding me, and acting like I don’t like you?”

“Because…because I know you don’t.”

“Ray, you’re one of my best fucking friends, dude. I wouldn’t trade you for the entire world, maybe even two or three worlds.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to lie to me.”

“You remember bobby shriever? How I kicked his fucking teeth in? I did that ‘cause he called you a loser.”

“Michael, it’s fine, really.”

There was a long pause in replies, and Ray switched back to his vent chat.

“Self-esteem issues. Why can’t I just be happy for once?”

Michael texted him again, a short message that was more imperative than question.

“Come to the hospital? I want to see you.”

It didn’t take even a second of thought. In less than a minute, Ray had his coat on, sneaking out the window and into the cold morning air. It was a freezing walk, filled with vent texts like ‘I might get stabbed’, and ‘its so cold’. It took him almost 30 minutes of walking though drifts of white and grey snow until he was ducking through the broken boards of Mercy Medical center.

Michael was in the waiting room, wearing a pair of flannel pajama pants and a thin leather jacket that looked really out of place with the rest of his getup. The second the curly-haired lad saw him, he jolted up from the chair he was sitting in, practically tackling him in a tight hug. He smelled like cheap whiskey and mint, which made Ray back away just slightly.

“Ray, you’re the best. You’re my best friend, dude,” Michael slurred drunkenly, patting the back of Ray’s head so hard that it almost knocked his glasses off.

“I thought Gavin was your best friend.”

“You’re both my best friends. But you’re my better friend. Team better friends, Ray, that’s you and me.” Michael pulls away, still holding his shoulders at arm’s length, and smiling. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

At that, something in Ray’s head starts to spin, starts to twist itself into something different. Something beautiful. Hearing Michael drunkenly admitting that he valued their friendship was something Ray had never felt before. The true honesty of a drunken man was not to be distrusted.

He leaned forward, pulling Michael into another hug, at which the other lad simply laughed, spinning Ray off his feet and around in a tight circle before putting him back down. There was a long pause, neither of the boys talking, just enjoying the feeling of being close to each other. 

“I’m glad you stopped smoking that shit,” Michael finally says. 

“Huh?”

“Weed, Ray. The 420 blazing it. I’m glad you stopped.”

“Didn’t know you were a teetotaler, Mr. Drunk as a Skunk.”

“I’m not. I was just worried for a while, because you smoked more than your average bear.”

“Michael…”

“Yeah, I know, I know. The anxiety. I know, Ray. I’ve been reading up on it.”

“You have?”

“Yeah, I did a little internet research. Ryan helped, actually. He’s got a bunch of psychology books and stuff ‘cause of his dad. I wanted to make sure you knew how much we care about you.”

Ray pulled away again, but Michael grabbed his wrist, a dumb drunken smile still on his face.

“We care about you, Ray. Me and Gav, and Ryan too, I guess. And I’m sure that person you’re always texting cares about you too.”

“That’s just…it’s just a number.”

“But it helps you. I can tell. You’re like, way less stressed, even without rolling a joint every other Friday.”

“I mean, I guess so. It does help, I guess. More than I probably realize. I tell them pretty much everything.”

“Like that time Gavin got stuck in the vending machine and you were freaking the fuck out?”

“Especially that. But like, other stuff too. Like when I can barely get out of bed because I’m worrying so much…I just type out everything I’m feeling and let it go. And when I don’t want to bother you guys with me feeling sorry for myself, I just let it go.”

“You’re never a bother, Ray. We love you.”

“You mean that? Really?”

“Yeah, I fuckin’ mean it! I’m piss drunk, and about ready to fall over, do you think I can lie right now? We’re in this to the end, dude.” Michael laughs, falling onto Ray’s shoulder, arms wrapped around his neck.

“I’m fucking cold, dude, can you help me upstairs? Nearly broke my ass getting down, dunno if I can handle going back up.”

“Sure, man, anything.”

Ray puts one of Michael’s arms over his shoulder, half dragging the giggling lad up the stairs and down the hall. There’s a lump under the blankets on the air mattress, which Ray assumes is Ryan. He sets Michael down on the edge of the bed, letting him lay back. Michael grabs his hand, pulling him down next to him. His back is to the other lad’s chest, and he can feel Ryan’s hand over Michael’s ribs.

“Don’t be weird about it, just stay. It’s a friend thing.”

“This is pretty weird for a friend thing.”

“Yeah, well it is, so deal with it. You need a big ol’ fucking hug, dude, and this is about as good as it’s gonna get.”

Ray smiled as Michael pulled the blankets over them, blocking out the cold air.

“Am I gonna get punched when I wake up?”

“As long as you aren’t a fussy sleeper, we’re fine,” comes the extremely gravelly and sleepy reply from over Michael’s head that sends both lads into a giggling fit.

“No promises, Rye Bread.”

“What is it with you people in that phrase? It’s starting to haunt my dreams.”


	3. Raysencrantz and Gavinstern Are Still Single

28.

That was the number of texts Ray had sent to the mysterious number in his phone in the last month. He was down to only one every day, with the help of Michael and Gavin checking up on him and reassuring him that they really did enjoy his company.

It was nice. Being sure about things for once. He hadn’t had a panic attack in almost two weeks, which was almost as miraculous as the lads' flawless theft of the plastic Santa from Ryan’s yard. Surprisingly, it isn’t easy to steal from a cop. Who would’ve guessed?

The Santa was now sitting in the corner of the room, forlornly looking over the mess of homework and papers covering the patchwork rug floor of the Mercy room. All three lads were there studying for their January midterms, with a promise from Ryan that he would be there in a few minutes. His car had broken down for the fifth time that week.

“You’d think he’d just get a new one by now,” Gavin said, gesturing into the air with the pen he’d just been chewing on.

“Nah, that fucking thing is his baby. He’d never give it up, even for like, a Porsche or something. Besides, fixing it up every now and then is actually pretty fun,” Michael explains, throwing a skittle from his bag at Gavin’s head and missing terribly.

“I’m getting flashbacks from autoshop now,” Ray complained with an exaggerated shudder.

“Listen, just ‘cause you couldn’t even change a tire to save your life doesn’t mean all cars are the devil, Ray.”

“First of all, it’s El Diablo, you uncultured cretin, and second of all, I’m not saying cars are the devil, I’m saying fixing cars is the devil.”

Michael looks down at his phone, raising an eyebrow at a text.

“What’s that?” Gavin tries to look over Michael’s shoulder, causing him to pull the phone to his chest. The brit leans over further, trying to pull the phone out of his grasp.

“Gavin, no! Let go, you mincey fuck!”

“Micoo, just let me see! What’s so-“ As he manages to wrest the thing from Michael’s grip, he immediately drops it, covering his mouth and squawking like a parakeet on steroids. Sadly, that was just how he sounded normally.

“Was it a dick?”

“Nuh-uh. Ryan’s been hitting the gym recently, and he sent me one of those really ‘straight white boy’-esque six pack shots. Might’ve just given Gav a nose bleed,” Michael needles, elbowing the offending lad in the ribs.

“It’s so unfair!” Gavin practically yells, falling dramatically back onto Ray’s lap with all the flourish of a stage actor. “Michael gets to have a hot boyfriend, and me and Ray are all by ourselves!”

“I mean, I’m pretty fine with the whole being alone thing,” Ray shrugs, pushing Gavin away.

“C’mon, you gotta be at least a little jealous, Ray,” Gavin pries.

“Nah. I’m a simple man with simple needs, I don’t need no man to make me happy.”

“But it’d be nice.”

“Yeah, it’d be nice.”

“What’s your type anyway, Ray? Ryan’s got some friends we could try to set you up with,” Michael says, ignoring Gavin’s protests of ‘but Micoo, I complained first!’

“Please don’t try to set me up with some freaky theater kid. I don’t know if I can handle that.”

“Nah, we’ll vet out all the good ones, I swear. So what’s the deal, Raynaldo, what kinda person you into?”

“Dunno. I like tall guys and short girls. That’s about as complicated as I get, man.”

“You’re a boring motherfucker, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know. ‘Sweet vanilla child’ or whatever.”

“That’s a pretty good description. Sounds like something Lindsay would say.”

“Yeah, all of us- well, really just all of you- got drunk one time, and her and Meg just ragged on me for hours about it.”

“Was that the same party where I jumped off the roof?”

“Yeah, it was that one. I got to third wheel them for half the night, then practically be a landing pad because you’re an idiot when you drink. Fun times.”

“Listen, when riot punch gets involved, all bets are off.”

“Yeah, there were some bets alright.”

Michael tosses another Skittle at Gavin, causing the conversation to sidetrack for almost 15 entire minutes about whether or not you could snort powdered skittles and be fine. Gavin figured it would be safe, but Ray and Michael thought it would kill you.

“Is this what you guys talk about?” Ryan asks incredulously from the doorway, tossing his snow-dusted bag into the disused chair. Michael practically jumps up from the floor, tossing his arms around Ryan’s neck in a tight hug, and almost knocking the taller boy over.

Ray makes a noise like someone puking, and Gavin just sulks on the floor, his arms crossed over his chest like a child.

“You guys are so Disney it hurts. I can feel the shitty singalong music starting now.”

“Like that one movie, with the lions,” Gav adds helpfully.

“You mean the Lion King?”

“Yeah, that one. Never was good with names.”

“Oh god, we’re Timon and Pumba. We’re the comedic relief side characters.”

“You know,” Ryan says, taking a seat in between Michael and Gavin, “They were supposed to be based on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from Hamlet.”

“Didn’t they, like, die?”

“Arguably. They could’ve survived.”

“Oh man, ‘could’ve survived’. What a bright outlook for us.”

“Well, you guys lived in the Lion King.”

“True, true. Ryan the ‘always right’ Guy.”

Ryan groaned at his nickname, just like he did every time it was brought up. It was the one bit of joy Ray got out of teasing the guy. He was too nice for their usual style of just roasting each other until somebody cried, so that was all that ever got said. Oh, and the jokes about the dad shoes. The fucking dad shoes. Michael swore every single time he saw them that he was going to steal them in the night and burn them. He wouldn’t though. Grand Santa Larceny was about as hardcore as the lads got. Shoe arson was a whole different story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm incredibly proud of that fucking pun for the chapter title, like, way more than I probably should be.


	4. Locker Letters

Ray opened his locker, expecting to see the usual assortment of garbage piled around wadded up gym clothes and falling apart text books. What he didn’t expect was to find a piece of loose leaf laying on top of the pile, as if someone had stuck it through the top of the locker door. It was folded into three neat sections, each fold lovingly creased until it looked almost pressed, with an untidy message of ‘A Deposition on Why Ray Narvaez Jr. Shouldn’t Smoke’ written on the front.

He opened it, expecting some professional looking letter (though, why a professional letter would be on lined paper, he didn't quite think long enough to question) only to find a message with bits crossed out and erased. It looked like it had been written in 3 different colors of ink and a pencil. Someone had obviously worked on this for a while, rewriting every last phrase down to the letter until they felt it was perfect.

“There’s a reason why I’m not telling you this in person, which I’ll get to later, but I just want you to know that it doesn’t mean I care about you any less.

Ray, you told me when we first met (back when Vinny got shipped off to Florida) that you felt like being stuck in the purple haze was the only thing keeping you sane; keeping you from being a nervous wreck. I just want to let you know that that was exactly how I felt, too (well, minus the actual smoking part).

And then I met you, this scrawny, mousy kid that I thought was going to stab me. I’ll freely admit, I kind of pitied you. I regret that now. You’re so much more than that. You turned into the most interesting mystery. It got to the point where waiting for your texts was the only thing keeping my mind off all the little problems scorching the back of my own head. I kept trying to figure out who you were, what you were like. Hell, I even started asking Ryan about you. (We have theater together) If you were okay, stuff like that. I wasn’t about to go full on stalker, but I was worried about you, which I know might seem weird coming from someone you’ve met once, but oh well.

Your messages got to be the high point of my day, if you'll forgive that insidious pun, which is ironic because they were often the low point of yours. Is that even irony? I’m not sure anymore, I took college prep, not AP. 

I kind of…and this is really hard to bring myself to write down, especially in a letter to you, but I kind of fell in love with you? Not like, crazy in love, or anything, but you just seemed so nice, like such a good person that it was hard to ignore the way my heart would swell whenever you texted me.

And then…and then you just stopped. I’d maybe get one message a day, and then eventually none. I was afraid you’d gotten back on the wagon at first, but I checked with Vinny’s old buddies (which actually almost got me stabbed, by the way. Turns out, drug dealers don't like, and I quote "young Santa Claus looking motherfucker"s showing up at their doorstep), but no one had seen you or even heard from you in months.

So, I guess you don’t need me anymore. Totally fine, by the way, in fact, I’m really glad you’re starting to get better. But, I’m nothing if not a selfish bastard, so I wrote you this entire insufferable, long winded letter to ask you if you wanted to get coffee with me sometime?

                             -Jack

Holy shit, that was simultaneously both the sappiest and most adorable thing he’d ever read.

It took an entire day for Ray to write a response, and damn if he didn’t work on it _all_ day. He even conscripted Ryan to help him proofread it, and then take it to this not-so-mysterious “Jack.”

“A Deposition (whatever that means) on Why Jack is an Idiot

You’re not an idiot, by the way, I just needed a snappy title.

Truth is, you’ve done so much for me and don’t even know it. I’m not going to say you cured my anxiety, ‘cause you didn’t, and I don’t think anyone ever will, but you and my friends have helped me to deal with it in a way that doesn’t kill my lungs and my wallet. Seriously, my wallet is fucking full for once, it’s great. I can buy all the cheese fries I want and not worry about being broke the next day. 

Hell, I don’t even know anything about you besides meeting once while I was tweaking out and a phone number (and what Ryan's told me about you, but that's ruin the whole "complete strangers" aesthetic, right?). I don’t even know what you’re into or if you like the same things I do. Do you prefer xbox over ps3, or are you a pc gaming fuck like Ryan? Fuck if I know. I don’t know jack shit (no pun intended), and normally that would make me really nervous, and I would be panicing, but I’m not. I think for the first time in my entire life I’m not anxious about something. Because it’s not someone off the street that might yell, or be angry with me.

Because it’s you. It’s the person who put up with all my bullshit and for some reason still wants to listen to me and not run 800 miles in the other direction.

I wouldn’t say I love you, because I don’t even know you, but I’m willing to talk, at least. How about coffee after school this Friday?

                    -Ray”

Later that day, after almost 3 hours of waiting, Ray pulled his phone out of his pocket to be greeted with a quickly strobing blue light. Unread.

“Coffee this Friday sounds fantastic.”

That was the first message ever sent from the other side of Ray’s mystical vent conduit. It was strange really, to suddenly see the string of numbers he’d been so connected to for so long suddenly become attached to a person. A really old-school, sappy person, but a person nonetheless. It was…well, it felt like the start of something good, and for once, Ray felt like he deserved it.


End file.
